PARIS — A rented helicopter flew over a prison exercise yard, lowered a cable and carried away an inmate who had been serving an 18-year sentence for armed robbery in a daring daytime escape.

Michel Vaujour, 34, appeared to have made a clean getaway, officials said. Vaujour, convicted of 10 robberies, escaped three other times from prison.

The escape began about 10:30 a.m. when an helicopter, piloted by a woman and carrying a man with a pistol, came into view over the walls at La Sante prison. The helicopter hovered for several minutes over the prison yard, where Vaujour, wearing a running suit, apparently was exercising.

A package with an automatic pistol was lowered, along with a cable with a hook attached to it. Vaujour kept guards away by showing the pistol.

Then, with the help of another prisoner, Vaujour climbed up the wall, using the cable and hook, and hoisted himself into the helicopter. The other inmate, Pierre Hernandez, apparently changed his mind at the last minute and did not escape.

Guards did not shoot at Vaujour or the helicopter.

Shortly after the escape, the helicopter landed in a college athletic field in the Porte d'Orleans area of southern Paris. Students, sunning themselves on the lawns of the complex, said they saw two men and a woman run from the helicopter to a waiting car.

In the long history of French prison escapes, it was only the second escape by helicopter. The first is already legend in France. In 1981, two prisoners in Fleury-Merogis, 25 miles south of Paris, escaped when, in front of startled guards and prisoners, a helicopter landed on the edge of a soccer field where they were participating in a prison match.

Gangsters Daniel Beaumont and Gerard Dupre ran to the helicopter, and it took off after less than 30 seconds on the ground.